Dear Feastlings,
I’ll note first of all that the lengthy letter of gratitude I sent out on Thanksgiving was heartfelt; I’m lucky to work with the people I work with and to serve the guests we serve. But this new week is a decided improvement to last week, in that whatever virus was working its way through the staff for the past two weeks appears to have run its course and left us all relatively safe and sound.
This week, I foresee no begging former coworkers to come and dig us out of a pre-Thanksgiving hole, and far fewer emergency runs to the grocery store for items we were shorted, or didn’t anticipate going through at the rate we did. How we managed to get the wine tasting prepped last Saturday and get the new menu prepped to launch today
https://www.eatatfeast.com/dining/menus/lunch-dinner/
is beyond me, though I’ll acknowledge that it helps to have 23 years’ worth of old menus to dust off and peek through. In the interest of expediency, and since with the staffing difficulties a virus precipitates, we had done virtually no prep by the day we returned from our one-day Thanksgiving hiatus, in order to be ready for today’s new menu, we did comb through the menus of Feast past and trot out a few past favorites, like the fresh and fried Brussels sprout and kale salad, the Gorgonzola carrot cake, the lobster with vanilla-popcorn cream and a few other items. There are a couple of new dishes, but you’ll also recognize a few dishes from our 300-plus menus from over the years.
Last week’s gratitude was big-picture gratitude; this week’s is rather more immediate. We’re rested. We’re healthy. We’re rolling up our sleeves for the holiday season. So yes, there’ll be a Christmas menu forthcoming, and I dare say we’ll be better able to produce it than we were the Thanksgiving menu, though even as I type this, I’m aware that to speak of the Devil is a risky endeavor. There’ll be a New Year’s Eve menu as well, and wine tastings each Saturday. And they’ll be posted here as the events near.
Case in point: This Saturday, December 7, we’ll be offering up this little affair.
It’s been a good few days since Thanksgiving- a remarkable guest and friend finished up his lunch a couple of weeks ago by handing me a check, saying it was because “I know you do good things around here,” and we were able to match his generous donation and bring food for a hundred and fifty or so people to the Sister Jose Women’s Center last Friday, which always feels good. The crew has more spring in its step now that Thanksgiving and The Worst Cold of All Time are behind us, which also feels good. Now we start in on getting more holiday menus written, and catering holiday parties here and there, and maybe getting in another nap next weekend. And then we can hit the ground running all over again, getting ready for the other upcoming holidays.
In the meantime, I hope you’ll come by and say hello, maybe eat some root vegetables or redfish, or Gorgonzola carrot cake, and let us wish you well.
Happy holidays.
Your pals at Feast